


vicalan

by toujours_nigel



Category: Mahabharata - Vyasa
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 18:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5507861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hear O King the histories that never came to pass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	vicalan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [filia_noctis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/filia_noctis/gifts).



**prastaavana**

Know, O King, that there are many paths in life, and oft one approaches a moment when many things might change on a word or a single deed, as in a forest following the fleet-footed deer, one might come to the hut of the rishi or the den of the tiger. Thus, O Janmejaya, was Vasusena many times lost in the forests of life, and he who was forever the enemy of your ancestors, himself numbering among them, might have been their greatest friend, their solace in grief and hope in despair, rivalling even Krishna. Yet is Fate of all phenomena the greatest, and what might man be but a puppet, as all men were, and splendid women, in that great battle that saw slain so many of your ancestors, and so he remained unknown to those who were close to him as his own flesh, as twins embracing in the mother's womb, and only in death did they know him.

Pay heed, O King, and I shall tell you the tale. Though many know the history of that time, and of the actions of your illustrious ancestors, only Krishna Dvaipyayan, to whom was given the great task of recording it, knew all the histories that faded at Fate’s slightest whim. He had it from the blessed gods, and I, his humble student, from him, and at this yajna where you give all snakes to the fire I can give tongue to those tales that were birthed dead for the matter that conceived them changed its path and as a flooded river brings villages to ruination and slaughters crops, so these deviations slaughtered these histories whose ghosts yet haunt the living tale and alight in wondering minds. As a shield brought to bear may deflect a swift arrow our decisions alter the course of history and bring one into being slaying all others.

 

 

**prashikshu**

On a bright day, O King, when old limbs however valiant feel the heat faster than the youth through whom the sap of kshatratej flows swiftly, did the great Rishi Parashurama call a halt to the sword-play with which the hill had rung all day, that the timid-hearted deer had fled the environs of the hermitage. Another man might have sent one student to the deep pool for cool water to fill the earthen belly of a pot, another to scourge the woods for refreshing food, another yet to fetch the fan made of dried palm leaves twisted about with lithe vines, and yet one more to fetch the bedding of goose-down. You may laugh, but think of your own tutors, and think, too, whether it made their hand or eye unsteady to be offered comfort in weariness. Yet had Parashurama but a single student, and though that great-hearted youth would have done much and dared more to please him, required only the right to place his venerable head on his thigh, as is the privilege of all whom we regard as fathers, and to sleep while he kept watch.

There is much about battle, O King, that must be taught, as you were by great masters, and your father by Partha himself, that far-sighted archer. The quick bravery of boyhood, ah, that is not to be taught, many a child of five is braver than a hardened warrior. What is taught is tenacity, not the first spark of leading a charge but the steady fire of a years-long war. A colt can stand at his mother’s teat in an hour and canter in three and in a day outstrip its owner in a race, yet to make of it a charger is the work of seven years. Had he been thirty, Vasusena would have disregarded the pain as easily as a shallow slice with a shaking knife, but at twenty, untested yet in war, the flesh is tender, and yet more tender is the heart that feels pain. He did not weep, as a brahmin youth aspiring to arms might have done, nor shriek as a child, but to hold back even a betraying tremor was beyond his budding powers. It flayed him to disturb the rest of his preceptor, and humbled his pride in himself.

Yet, O King, Rishi Parashurama who had swept the world of kshatriyas, turned on his student only affectionate eyes, and praised him for showing fortitude that might have been worthy of kshatriyas and in a brahmin was laudable indeed, for what is innate is not as worthy of praise as that which, unnatural, has been attained. So did Parashurama the scourge of kshatriyas give his student the name of Vrisha, for he was strong as a bull and brave as one, and bestow upon him such skills and knowledge of weapons as even his favourite Drona had not been given, for though they had chosen a different path, yet the son of Bharadvaja came of a royal clan, and Rishi Parashurama had a long memory and a wrathful one.

 

 

**prayastu**

Listen, O King, to this tale with a clear heart. Your ancestor Vasudeva came upon this earth to rid it of those who were of mixed blood, sprung from the illicit passion of princes for the daughters of mendicants, of priests for tradeswomen, of queens for horsemen. Yet there were those who sprung from such unions, and held in their natures, not the worst but the best of their parents, as muddied water can give rise to polluting algae and yet also to the thousand-petalled lotus that is laid at the foot of the gods in worship and judged well-given. Such a one was Vasusena thought, for in those years none knew but Kunti what all now know, that he was not a Souta, but in very truth a Rashmirathi, sprung from the unbridled passion of a god and bedded in a royal womb. Yet his splendour of bravery and of beauty astounded all when he challenged Partha, that far-sighted archer, and swore he could best him.

Yet, O King, though eyes were dazzled, not so were the minds of the Kuru elders, who sought to protect the princes from harm. Already they had intervened in the battle of Bheema and Prince Duryodhana, when those splendid young men struggled as young bulls locking horns that will not desist though blood flows freely but will persist unto death, and now too they intervened to guard Arjuna your ancestor from hurt to his pride, which in a prince is a tender shoot that must be nourished and left neither too dry nor watered too much, for the roots are but shallowly bedded in the soil of the self and might wither or rot. They stopped that young warrior, and under their questions his splendour dimmed from the sun at the zenith to its red disc at the horizon at dusk, just so he glowered, and just so he blushed. None of Duryodhana’s pleas were of avail, and the scorn of Prince Bheema grew to be a mountain.

And then, O King, among the women the beauteous Pritha arose from her swoon, and in her voice that resounded like a conch-shell sounded for war or worship, asked her sons whether they so feared defeat that they were unwilling to match even in sport one who had shown himself by his skill and by his valour and by the splendour of his panoply a splendid warrior, as a champaka flower in the deepest forests is revealed by its fragrance. Then did the sons of Pandu, shamed by their mother, overwhelm the protestations of their elders and beckon the glorious stranger to feats of arms, and though neither Arjuna nor Vasusena could each overset the other, yet they were well-content to leave it in the arena of sport and neither made of the day a battle. In the days that followed they looked each upon the other still without favour but slow-fruiting respect, and to Kunti's royal heart this gave such hope that she dared meet that lost son as if by accident often in the halls of the princes and most in the chambers of Duryodhana and converse with him and bring him from dusk into the day's bright glare and watch the sun kiss his limbs in benediction and limn him in beloved light.

 

 

**sabhya**

Hear, O King, how your ancestors in a game of dice lost their wealth, their kingdom, their crown, and even their wife the splendid Panchali, who had graced their lives and council-halls, and borne them glorious sons. From her isolation they had drawn her by the hair through the halls, bleeding in the sight of the venerable elders and of the young princes who had gathered to gamble with life and fortune, and though her husbands seethed at the dishonour they were bound to the honour of one who had in wine forgotten his own honour. So beauteous Panchali stood in the light of a thousand lamps and drank their light and no man in the halls, possessed though each was of many wives and of the affection of courtesans for whose affections cities were taxed, but looked at her and thought of her with lust and yet the strange reverence which women-loving men offer to the dread goddesses to look upon whose beauty with lustful eyes draws down death. She was not young, Panchali, but age had made of her only a greater beauty, as the lotus in full bloom supersedes the bud in splendour and in fragrance. Like a blue lotus was she with her hair about her, yet scarlet-tinged, and all men loved her and despaired.

Yet, even in their fear, O King, some men laughed as jackals will when a lioness falls, and others catching bravery from them jested of how proud Panchali now was with her husbands a slave, bonded to the service of the Kauravas, and how she would soon clean the halls in which she had been accustomed to occupy. Loudest of all laughed Karna, who in his bright youth had sought her and now in his stained years could find no words for it but lust. If he could not have her with flowers and gods and the pure fire washing them clean, he would have her blood-stained and defiant. Tangled in the toils of the court as a mongoose in the coils of a serpent as he had been long years, he found her lovelier thus than bedecked with garlands and fragrant with sandalwood.

But in his lust he had not lost that sharp mind that cut through battles as his arrows sliced flesh, O King, and he knew this spurner, this scornful woman who had made him much of what he was, as he knew the wife who had graced his life and council-hall and borne him glorious sons. As the tongues of the princes turned as their minds had already, to the many uses to which a slave might be put he claimed her for his prize and Duryodhan that generous prince, mindful always of the bruises on his friend’s honour with great joy granted her and commended her to his care and bid him luck. To his chambers he took her, while her husbands thrashed and roared, and out of sight pressed a callused palm to her petal-mouth and waited for the bonds of patience that had withstood losses and taunts and shaming to snap as the last straw will bring to its knees the overloaded camel when but a straw less had left it still standing.

 

 

**sahodar**

You are young, O King, and duty looms large in your mind and figures as your debt to your parents, to your teachers, to the gods. Yet these are debts that one cannot pay back, for what can one give to the gods but devotion, but incense, or to teachers or to our parents but to step into their roles as the son of Kaikeyi took upon his shoulders the role of Kaushalya's son and never claimed it as his own. Yet to the people of Ayodhya he was as a king and for his reticence they praised him higher and his brother on his glorious return loved him as himself. So, too, are our duties to our children, which bring us nearer our parents that we may better know their thoughts and find their words, their mysterious deeds, ring true to our minds.

Your ancestor the queen of the great Pandu, splendid Pritha, went O King with the rising sun to her child whom she had long years abandoned to plead for the life of all her sons. She had borne him young, as young as the blossoming children of his sons, and her duties towards her stern father, and her terror of the god who had claimed her, had seemed greater to her in her youth than her duty to him. Yet she pleaded not for the lives only of the sons she had borne for King Pandu, but for his that had been nourished in the same womb. She spoke of the love they would bear him, and he turned his head from hers, and she spoke of his honours as king and he turned his heart to stone. Too long had he suffered at the hands of these now his brothers and too long had he sought revenge. What love there was in him was for the children of his home, and for his wife of long years, and for the friend of his heart. Yet he could not send her empty-handed home.

Years ago, O King, upon first being crowned the King of Anga, he had taken to bride a woman of his father's choosing and then being spurned had never brought home a lesser rival, nor grown ever distant from his wife. She had borne him ten sons, and half as many daughters, and they had lived to see grandchildren play at their knees. Since rising from his worship of the sun he had longed to tell her, and to rest his head upon her thigh and have her counsel him. She who knew best his high honour did not seek to turn him from it, nor spoke of duty but brought forward their youngest son, who was of an age with his nephews and clamouring to go to war as his brothers were readying for it, and let the child's querulousness turn him from son to father again, and to the father spoke of the cruel swords and arrows of war, of the son slain in the first years of their marriage in the melee at Draupadi's swayamvar, and let the father's duties overwhelm the friend, the ally, the son.

 

 

**saday**

Many, O King, are the paths by which man approaches his fate, and often he must walk them blind, groping his way to a future of which he has no knowledge. Often our lives depend not on our deeds or thoughts, but upon the whims of others, as Indra's whim might leave a people parched, or Agni's burn through a village. We may rail against Fate but as a child's protests fail to arrest the punishing hand of its mother, so too Fate deals us blows all uncaring. Yet we might turn a corner in the path and see right and wrong emblazoned, plain as a deep lake in the forest, still and shimmering, and choosing evil take poison knowing into our throats. Thus it was when Abhimanyu your ancestor entered the Padmavyuha that few could penetrate and fewer survive. Ranged about him were the maharaths of the Kaurava army, men who had been warriors before his father had been born, or had struggled with his father in many battles ere the founding of Indrapastha, and he the young prince, splendid in his valiant youth was fighting them, besting them, uncaring that his arrows were spent and his sword now rusty, and fighting with his eyes forever upon the mouth of the vyuha awaiting the entry of his uncles, of his allies, of rescue. His panoply lay broken on the ground, and he was whirling about his chariot now with daggers in his hand and the greaves on his arms his sole protection. Of Karna's sons only Sudama had died younger, at Arjuna's hands.

For all their oaths and all their resolve to kill him, O King, the Kaurava maharaths shuddered when he approached Abhimanyu and ripped the daggers from his bleeding hands and broke the greaves from his wrists. In many of their minds the matter had turned to murder already and to have the Souta take it upon himself relieved many, yet made it more repugnant. Abhimanyu's was a tall frame, and fighting he had shown himself their full equal, and they who had bent a bow at ten and slit throats at fifteen could scarce think of him, death-dealing, their inferior. Held helpless against Karna's great bulk, his throat hidden beneath Karna's great hands he looked a very child, and they called to memory the infant who had come toddling to their knees in the courtyards of Indraprastha, or the glowing bride his mother had been, or that he had wedded the slender daughter of King Viraata and they had thought it a great blow but a good thing. As the breath went out of him and he lolled doll-like they remembered that was kin, and that he was young, and that he was loved, and none cared to touch his corpse, and none stopped Karna, Karna whom they had begun all unknowing to dub the butcher within their minds' close confines, from carrying it careless through the impenetrable infantry lines. Outside the Padmavyuha the Pandavas ranged, all helpless, and at their feet he dropped the youth and urging them to weep returned not to battle but his own tent ranged in the Kaurava lines.

In Bheema's great arms, O King, in Yudhishtira's chariot Abhimanyu shuddered back to consciousness as his uncles wept and spoke wonderingly of the kindness of sworn enemies, and of the grip of death like the embrace of a father.


End file.
